Common Voice Spontaneous Speech 3.0 - Adyghe

Адыгабзэ — Adyghe (ady)

This datasheet is for sps-corpus-3.0-2026-03-09 of the Mozilla Common Voice Spontaneous Speech dataset for Adyghe [Адыгабзэ - ady]. The dataset contains 836 clips representing 5.71 hours of recorded speech (4.67 hours validated) from 27 speakers.

Language

Adyghe (/ˈædɪɡeɪ/ or /ˌɑːdɪˈɡeɪ/, also known as West Circassian) is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken by the western subgroups of Adygheans (Circassians). Identified by the ISO 639-3 code ady, it belongs to the Northwest Caucasian language family. Adyghe is also one of the official languages of the Republic of Adygea, a federal subject of the Russian Federation.

The Adyghean (West Circassians) population is estimated to be between 1,200,000 to 2,000,000 although the number of active speakers is significantly lower. Adygheans are primarily located in the Republic of Adygea, Russia, with additional diaspora populations in Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Syria, the United States, Canada, and various European countries due to historical migrations. However, only about 10% of the Adyghe population is considered literate in the language.

For more information about the global distribution of Adyghe population, see:
The Adyghe (Circassian) Diaspora Today.

Variants

The following table presents the general language variants of the Adyghe language used in the Common Voice project.

Questions in the MCV-SS project are provided in Cyrillic and Turkish transliteration to support non-literate users from the Turkish diaspora. With "literacy" we mean being able to read the Adyghe alphabet.

Data splits for modelling

The dataset clips are categorised by transcription status and training-set assignment. The following tables summarise the distribution.

Audio clips

Training splits

Training split coverage: 694 of 694 transcribed & validated clips (100.0%)

Transcriptions

Transcription status

Writing system

The Adyghe language uses the Cyrillic script with some additional letters to represent specific sounds in the language. The alphabet consists of 66 letters, including 33 standard Cyrillic letters and 33 additional letters unique to Adyghe. The writing system is phonetic, meaning that words are generally spelled as they are pronounced. Adyghe is written from left to right.

During the period when there was no Adyghe keyboard option, the recorded text content was written with the Russian keyboard as the closest alternative. The characters in the Adyghe alphabet defined by the Unicode Consortium as "Cyrillic Letter Palocka ('Ӏ': u04C0, utf-8)" and "Cyrillic Letter Small Palocka ('ӏ': u04CF, utf-8)" are not defined in this keyboard model. For this reason, since the early days of computers, when creating digital data in Adyghe or Kabardian, one of the characters "Latin Capital Letter i ('I': u0049, utf-8)", "Latin Small Letter L ('l': u006C, utf-8)" or "Digit One ('1': u0031, utf-8)", albeit rarely "Vertical Line ('|': u007C, utf-8)" was used randomly due to their visual similarities (Nemlioğlu, 2018). This situation emerges as an important factor that negatively affects data quality (Nemlioğlu,2025).

Therefore we allowed the use of only the keyboard layout specially designed for Adyghe language in the Common Voice project. This keyboard layout includes all the letters of the Adyghe alphabet, including the special characters "Cyrillic Letter Palocka ('Ӏ': u04C0, utf-8)" and "Cyrillic Letter Small Palocka ('ӏ': u04CF, utf-8)". The use of this keyboard layout has significantly improved the quality of the text data in Adyghe. Click here to download Adyghe Keyboard for Windows.

Symbol table

Main Alphabet: (Ordered by ascending) а б в г {гу} {гъ} {гъу} д {дж} {дз} {дзу} е ё ж {жъ} {жъу} {жь} з и й к {ку} {къ} {къу} {кӏ} {кӏу} л {лъ} {лӏ} м н о п {пӏ} {пӏу} р с т {тӏ} {тӏу} у ф х {хъ} {хъу} {хь} ц {цу} {цӏ} ч {чъ} {чӏ} ш {шъ} {шъу} {шӏ} {шӏу} щ ъ ы ь э ю я ӏ {ӏу}

Orthographic–Phonetic Table (IPA):

Auxiliary exemplar: The following letters may also be present in the dataset, but are not part of the official Adyghe alphabet. They are used to represent three specific sounds in the Shapsug dialect. They could potentially appear in some dialogues or quoted sentences.

{гь}: Voiced dorso-palatal plosive [ɟ] (e.g. егьэ (jeɟɘ) [Shapsug] = еджэ [Adyghe]: reading) {кь}: Voiceless dorso-palato-velar plosive [kʲ] (e.g. кьэт (kʲɘt) [Shapsug] = чэт [Adyghe]: chicken ) {кӏь}: Glottalized voiceless dorso-palato-velar plosive [kʲʼ] (e.g. кӏьакӏьэ (kʲʼäkʲʼɘ) [Shapsug] = кӏэнкӏэ [Adyghe]: egg)

Other Languages: Some entries in the dataset include words originating from other languages, such as Russian or Turkish. These words have been phonetically transcribed using the Adyghe alphabet, with characters chosen to approximate their original pronunciation as closely as possible.

Samples

Questions

There follows a randomly selected sample of questions used in the corpus.

1. Пчэдыжьрэ сыд кӏуачӏэ къыпхэзылъхьэрэр? [Pçedıjre sıd k'uaçç'e khıpxezılhherer?]

2. "Тиныдэлъфыбзэу адыгабзэр мыкӏодыжьынымкӏэ тыпэшӏуекӏонэу сыд тшӏэмэ хъущт, сыд уигупшысэр? [Tinıdelhfıbzeu adıgabzer mık'odıjınımç'e tıpeş'uêk'oneu sıd tş'eme xhuşt, sıd vuigupşşıser?]"

3. Сыд псэушъхьа анахь уикӏасэр? Сыда ар зыкӏыуикӏасэр? [Sıd pseuşsha anah vuiç'aser? Sıda ar zıç'ıuiç'aser?]

4. "Дунаим анахьэу исыд чӏыпӏа плъэгъунэу ыкӏи уздэкӏонэу узфаер ыкӏи сыда узкӏыфаер? [Dunaim anaheu yisıd çç'ıp'a plheğuneu ıç'i vuzdek'oneu vuzfaêr ıç'i sıda vuzç'ıfaêr?]

5. "Къэӏуатэба, непэ джыдэдэм сыд узэгупшысэрэр? [Khe'uateba, nêpe cıdedem sıd vuzegupşşıserer?]",

Responses

There follows a randomly selected sample of transcribed responses from the corpus.

1. Фильмэ сяплъынэу сыгу рихьырэр, зэгъо дэд сызэреплъыре, ау зэгъо дэдэн фай фильме, нахьыбэм сериалхэр ра сызэплъырэр.

2. [noise] Анахьэу щыӏэныгъэм къыгъэлъэгъуагъэр зыхэбгъэлъын фаеу цӏыфыныгъэр ары. Пӏуагъэр зэрэбгъэшъыпкъэжьын фаер, шӏукӏэ цӏыфмэ уазэрэпэгъокӏын фаер ары. Ары зекӏокӏэ-шӏыкӏэ шапхъэу цӏыфым хэлъын фаер [noise].

3. Зигьи сыкӏуагъэп, ау сызщыпсэунэу сызфае чӏыпӏэр хэкур ары.

4. Шъуигъэсэныгъэ системыр шӀу сэлъэгъу сыда пӀомэ адыгабзэм нэхь дэгъу зэбгъэшӀэн пае ищыкӀагъэ

5. Сицӏыкӏугъэм [noise] «Дисней» къыдигъэкӏырэ мультфильмэхэм сяплъыщтыгъэ. «Алладин», [disfluency] «Русалка» зыфэпӏощтым фэдэхэр. Ащ пэмкӏэ ытӏани «Том и [noise] Джерри» сеплъыщтыгъэ.

Recommended post-processing

These transcriptions are provided as-is, and no additional post-processing is required. However, users may choose to perform Unicode normalization (NFC or NFD) depending on their specific use case.

Although the sentences (questions/translation texts) have been written and verified using correct Unicode characters via the ady & kbd keyboard for Windows, it is possible that some text inputs beyond our control may have been submitted due to Common Voice’s open participation model.

After the datasets are published, we re-audit these entries and take the necessary steps to ensure corrections in the next release.

Fields

Each row of a tsv file represents a single audio clip, and contains the following information:

• client_id - hashed UUID of a given user

• audio_id - numeric id for audio file

• audio_file - audio file name

• duration_ms - duration of audio in milliseconds

• prompt_id - numeric id for prompt

• prompt - question for user

• transcription - transcription of the audio response

• votes - number of people that who approved a given transcript

• age - age of the speaker1

• gender - gender of the speaker1

• language - language name

• split - for data modelling, which subset of the data does this clip pertain to

• char_per_sec - how many characters of transcription per second of audio

• quality_tags - some automated assessment of the transcription--audio pair, separated by |

  • transcription-length - character per second under 3 characters per second

  • speech-rate - characters per second over 30 characters per second

  • short-audio - audio length under 2 seconds

  • long-audio - audio length over 5 minutes

Get involved

Community links

• If you want to join ady community, start here: https://bit.ly/cv_circassian_start_here

You can find more information about how to participate in the Common Voice Project on the following page:

• Common Voice translators on Pontoon

• Common Voice Communities

Discussions

• Common Voice on Matrix

• Common Voice on Discourse

• Common Voice on Discord

• Common Voice on Telegram

Contribute

We do not advice to contribute to this dataset directly, because of writting system-keyboard issues. Please, read the section "Writing system" above and the following article: https://www.nemerko.org/the-importance-of-adyghe-keyboard-usage-for-artificial-intelligence-training/

If you want to contribute to the Adyghe language, please visit the following links: https://bit.ly/cv_circassian_start_here

A special thanks to all the volunteers who contributed to this dataset.

• Contribute questions

• Validate questions

• Answer questions

• Transcribe recordings

• Validate transcriptions

Acknowledgements

Datasheet authors

• M.Ugur Nemlioglu <nemerko@nemerko.com>

• Murat Topçu <murattopcu67@hotmail.com>

• M.Uğur Nemlioğlu <nemerko@nemerko.com>

• Saida Abregova

• Elizaveta Gogunokova

• Murat Topçu

• Bülent Özden (Technical Advisor)

Funding

This dataset was partially funded by the Open Multilingual Speech Fund managed by Mozilla Common Voice.

Licence

This dataset is released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC-0) licence. By downloading this data you agree to not determine the identity of speakers in the dataset.

Footnotes

1. For a full list of age, gender, and accent options, see the demographics spec. These will only be reported if the speaker opted in to provide that information. ↩ ↩2